When we learn Irish trad tunes, the tradition is to combine them into medleys (called sets) of two or more tunes. Sets are the sorcery of Irish sessions to outsiders. To drop into a pub and listen to a scraggly group of musicians play high tempo tunes in unison and then poof! switch to a different tune without a hitch is a thrilling experience for the audience (and often the musicians themselves).

How do our folk musician ambitions manifest themselves in the music we listen to? What comes out of your headphones and speakers matters, and the music we get to hear live is generally highly inspiring to our own practice. Some of us find it very easy to listen to music while we do other things. Almost everyone can listen to music while they drive a vehicle or clean the house, and some of us can listen to music at work. Others don't have a habit of listening to music at all, even though they are great musicians, or can’t even tolerate it in the background.

Song practice begins with careful organization. It's great fun to turn randomly to a page or play whatever comes to mind, and I highly recommend it. Beyond that, we need a comprehensive method for learning and practicing every song in your ever expanding repertoire. Here is where your song repertoire and song practice sheets come into play.

Singing from memory is mandatory for the serious musician. We need to internalize lyrics along with the style of delivery. Imagine a Dolores Keane, Mary Black, Christy Moore, Paul Brady, Andy Irvine or other folk legends like Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash squinting at a music stand while they poured their hearts out! And yes, agreed, there’s nothing less elegant than someone whipping out their smartphone and reading off a tiny screen and scrolling while they attempt to sing, play a guitar, and interact with other musicians at a session!

There are a lot of tunes to learn! The fact that Irish musicians play them as sets is no accident. It's helpful for playing for long dances and for grouping tunes together so that it's easier to remember a repertoire that quickly reaches thousands of tunes. It's also extremely fun to play along with a set when we don't quite know what the leader has in mind next. Our challenge is to organize an ever growing list of tune sets and to find a reliable way to review them all sequentially so that we reinforce our memory of each tune. We actually need to do quite a few tasks.

Think you’re bad at remembering tunes? You’re probably not! You just need a strategy.

Being a musician means making many kinds of errors, but have you ever really thought about what causes errors and how to iron them out of your playing? Let’s take a short look at why errors occur and what do about them.

Last week was our first week of teaching at Majorstuen skole in Oslo. We’d like to share a little about are inaugural week and as well as introduce this new blog, which will be all about the school and give insights into learning and practicing Irish trad music.